Seton Hall’s Bobby Gonzalez Is a Divisive Figure in the Big East

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. — In Bobby Gonzalez’s first season as Seton Hall’s men’s basketball coach, he likened his loyalty to his players to a scene from “A Bronx Tale,” in which a local crime boss galvanizes his neighborhood cohort to defend his bar from a motorcycle gang. After showing the bloody sequence on a television in the locker room before a game, Gonzalez smiled.

“It didn’t matter if the house was burning down, his focus was on us winning together,” said Grant Billmeier, a senior captain that season, 2006-7.

“There’s no calm with him; I’d hate to see him try sitting still in a church,” said Pratt, a shooting guard from the Bronx who transferred to Iona after that season, then gave up basketball. “If you put a video together of all his own blow-ups, you could sell more tickets than ‘Avatar.’ ”

After reaching the N.C.A.A. tournament twice and the National Invitation Tournament once in five years under Orr, Seton Hall will probably make its first N.I.T. appearance in four years under Gonzalez. The Pirates enter the Big East Conference tournament this week as the 10th seed and one of the most intriguing teams.

Much of that is because Gonzalez has emerged as one of the most divisive and volatile characters in the conference. Gonzalez, 46, is the only coach in the conference’s history to be suspended for sideline misbehavior and for criticizing officials. He has openly sparred with rival Big East coaches. Despite his frequent blow-ups, the university extended his contract through 2015.

“Seton Hall made a bad decision,” Jhony Garcia said after Gonzalez attributed a recent Senior Night loss partly to the two minutes his son, John Garcia, played.

Gonzalez’s combativeness extends to his relations with the news media. Few journalists who report on Seton Hall have been spared Gonzalez’s tirades. His sister, Linda Gonzalez, and Richard J. Codey, the president of the New Jersey Senate, frequently make calls to complain about negative coverage.

“He has a tremendous skill for being able to alienate himself from everyone,” said Emanuel Richardson, an assistant at the University of Arizona who has known Gonzalez since his days as a high school assistant 20 years ago. “He uses that as a mechanism to act the way he does. It’s his gift and curse. When I’d recruit against him he’d tell me, ‘You’re a shark, but I’m a great white.’ ”

A High-Risk Team

At Seton Hall, a small Catholic university that recently cut its track and field programs, men’s basketball is the athletic department’s flagship. Although Gonzalez’s teams have improved each season while playing in perhaps the nation’s toughest conference, the program has not evolved as administrators envisioned. When Seton Hall fired Orr, it cited his struggles in recruiting and running a program. Gonzalez has built his team around high-risk, second-chance transfers.

Keon Lawrence, a junior guard who transferred from Missouri, was arrested by the New Jersey State Police before he played his first game for Seton Hall. He drove the wrong way on the Garden State Parkway and caused a two-car accident Nov. 9. Lawrence was charged with assault by auto (which involves causing serious bodily injury while operating a vehicle under the influence) and driving with a suspended license. Gonzalez suspended Lawrence for more than a month. Athletic Director Joe Quinlan declined to go into further detail because Lawrence’s case is pending.

“I’m not trying to be like Coach Tarkanian at U.N.L.V. and taking in all the runaway kids,” Gonzalez said, referring to the former coach Jerry Tarkanian. “And I’m not saying they can’t screw up tomorrow. But they’ve been good people here. Hopefully counseling has cooled Keon’s butt down. Drinking and driving is like a cardinal sin.”

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Seton Hall extended Bobby Gonzalez’s contract through 2015 despite his frequent blow-ups.Credit
Aaron Houston for The New York Times

Forward Herb Pope, a transfer from New Mexico State who leads the Pirates in rebounding, was also arrested for driving under the influence and under-age drinking two years ago.

None of the three players who have committed to play for Seton Hall next season have qualified academically, continuing a pattern of questionable recruiting.

Gonzalez has brought top local players to campus to raise the program’s profile. In March 2008, a period when coaches could not have in-person contact with prospects, he was seen ushering the former St. Anthony High star Dominic Cheek of Jersey City, a McDonald’s all-American now playing at Villanova, into his office during an Adidas-sponsored workout on campus. Gonzalez has repeatedly denied he did anything wrong, but he was seen with his arm around Cheek that day. “He just told me I had the key to Jersey City,” Cheek said after the meeting.

Gonzalez nearly had a fistfight with his former assistant Steve Masiello, who is now at Louisville, during a visit to St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark. Their altercation was caught on a security camera.

“I’m not entirely proud of that,” said Gonzalez, who describes himself as a workaholic but does much of his recruiting over the phone.

“If Bobby gets you on the phone, you can look down at your wristwatch and know that the next hour is gone,” said Bob Hurley, the coach at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, who has known Gonzalez more than 20 years. “It’s almost all monologue. He never comes up for air, and I try to get a word in, but it’s no use.”

At Paterson Catholic, a favorite to win a state title this season, Gonzalez has cultivated a relationship with Coach Damon Wright and landed two of his players. Although Gonzalez has rarely been to the Paterson Catholic gym, Wright said that Jordan Theodore, now a Seton Hall sophomore, and Fuquan Edwin, a star senior at Paterson Catholic, were familiar with Gonzalez’s style and personality.

“Bobby has yet to show me the craziness, but Jordan’s told me all about it,” said Edwin, one of the prospects who has not yet fulfilled the academic qualifications to play in college.

Gonzalez, who grew up in Binghamton, N.Y., was a point guard in high school and then at Buffalo State.

“He got to give the orders as point guard, and I think he really liked that,” said Tom Corgel, Gonzalez’s high school coach in Binghamton.

While a counselor at a Syracuse University summer camp in the late 1980s, Gonzalez met Orange Coach Jim Boeheim, who eventually helped land him a job as the junior varsity coach at St. Nicholas of Tolentine High School in the Bronx.

“Bobby didn’t know his way out of a brown paper bag when he got here, but he learned,” said Bob Mackey, then the varsity coach at Tolentine.

One afternoon, Gonzalez was chided by Sister Rose Ellen Gorman, the school’s principal, for placing his hands around a student’s neck.

“Yes sister, yes sister,” Mackey heard Gonzalez say.

Gonzalez established his style at Manhattan College, where he took his first head coaching job in 1999. Some former players recalled endless practices and pregame meals eaten in silence.

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Coach Bobby Gonzalez, in his fourth season at Seton Hall, has built his team around high-risk, second-chance transfer players.Credit
Aaron Houston for The New York Times

Gonzalez’s teams went 129-77 in his seven-year run at Manhattan, including two trips to the N.C.A.A. tournament.

Numerous players from Gonzalez’s time at Manhattan said he had instilled a culture so intense that it sapped their spirit. It drove at least one player to quit the team. Mike Konovelchick chose to go on spring break with his friends as a senior rather than play in the 2006 National Invitation Tournament.

Manhattan’s athletic director, Bob Byrnes, said: “The thing about this grind was that it didn’t need to be as laborious as it was. It was made laborious by unprofessional or selfish behavior. He made things larger than they were.”

Others described a culture in which the players’ main bond was their dislike of Gonzalez.

“I don’t know how he coached guys who wanted to strangle him and then went out there and played lights-out for him,” said Mike Bramucci, a former assistant to Gonzalez at Manhattan. “It’s a gift. I don’t know what kind of gift, but it’s an absolute gift.”

The former Jasper Kenny Minor called Gonzalez “the craziest person I’ve ever met in my life, by far.” Minor added: “If I were to ever become a coach, I learned a lot of things I wouldn’t do. Even though we won, it was hard to enjoy basketball.”

He and others said that Gonzalez consistently broke the N.C.A.A.’s rules on practice hours. Byrnes confirmed that players “on more than one occasion” anonymously complained about Gonzalez going over practice limits. Byrnes said he had dealt with it by having an associate athletic director attend every practice to monitor the time.

Minor and other players felt the team goals were focused toward promoting Gonzalez’s career. They said Gonzalez relished any attention he received, especially in the New York newspapers, and had assistants cut out the articles and highlight his name.

“When I went to Manhattan, I learned how to win for someone’s career path,” Noah Coughlin, a former Jasper, said. “I learned how to win for the benefit of Gonzo.”

Feeding Off the Chaos

On Thursday night, Gonzalez was in his element in a game at Rutgers. The Pirates pushed the pace behind the star transfers Pope and Jeff Robinson. Tensions rose to the point that Gonzalez rushed onto the court to separate his player from a potential fight, and he exchanged words with two Rutgers assistants in the handshake line. Afterward, Gonzalez suggested the chaos as a source of energy.

“I think that resolve comes from all that we’ve weathered,” Gonzalez said.

Msgr. Robert Sheeran, the university president, is set to step down at the end of the academic year. The athletic department situation is muddled; Quinlan, a bookish type who has clashed with Gonzalez, is working without a contract. (Byrnes said Sheeran and Quinlan did not call him for a background check before they hired Gonzalez.)

Dean Patrick E. Hobbs of Seton Hall Law School has been running the athletic department since last summer. And then there is Codey, who has also served as Acting Governor. Codey said he had no official role at Seton Hall, but he helped Gonzalez negotiate his contract extension last summer.

A university official with knowledge of the contract said that despite the extension through 2015, the university’s financial obligation is identical to the prior contract, so the university extended Gonzalez’s contract without offering him any more guaranteed money.

When asked if Gonzalez had matured at Seton Hall, Codey said, “It’s not easy to change a lifetime of conduct in a short period.” He added, “But the light is much brighter at the end of the tunnel than it was before Bobby.”

Still, Gonzalez never appears settled. Sonny Vaccaro, who mentored Gonzalez since his days as a high school assistant, called him this season after a big win. Vaccaro said he had left this voice mail message: “Gonzie, great win, great job. You’re doing a great job. Just stay humble.”

Gonzalez called back, and Vaccaro recalled that he said: “Sonny, you know me, I can’t help myself. I work too hard. I was never one of the chosen ones.”